I've got one more scene to subtitle of a Noel Coward play called Relative Values. I've easily spent more than 15 hours working on the subtitles for a 2 hour recording, and I've kept a list of suggested features that would have made this task more bearable.
Sony, if you're listening, thanks for any consideration you might give for these ideas.
#1: Split-Subtitle feature:
when summoned, DVA would take the text after the current cursor location in the subtitle text (you would first need to be in Edit Text mode), and put it into a new separate subtitle adjacent to the original. The adjacency could be determined by splitting the time in half or perhaps as a ratio of the text before and after the cursor when it was invoked.
Here are the current actions needed to perform this task now:
1. Drag the right edge of the first subtitle to the left to make room for the new additional subtitle.
2. Copy the first subtitle and paste it into the space created in step 1
3. Go back to the first subtitle, and enter Edit Text mode. Select the text to the right of the desired “cut point” and delete it.
4. Select the new subtitle and enter Edit Text mode. Select the text from the beginning up to the “cut point” and delete it.
5. Reposition the end of the first subtitle and the beginning of the second subtitle to correspond to the appropriate frame in the audio dialog.
Repeat this sequence approximately 300 times in a one-week period and you'll understand.
#2 Invoke "Edit Text " mode via double-click:
It would much faster to be able to enter “Edit Text” mode of a subtitle in the preview window by double-clicking on the text object. Double-clicking doesn’t appear to do anything else.
#3 Join Subtitles:
Would join the selected subtitles into one subtitle event and concatenate the text
#4 Hide/Minimize Track in the Timeline:
When the video track is displayed in the timeline, the PC appears to be burdened trying to render it while it’s playing it, making subtitle positioning impossible until you've played the segment once already, which I assume is performing a RAM pre-render of some type. When the provided "Clear Video" function is invoked, the response time is fine as there's no video to process. Most of my subtitle work doesn’t need the video to position subtitles. When video is desired, I must use the “Set Video” function and find the original file with the open dialog, which is tiring when you’ve done it several times in a session. Perhaps a Vegas-style track-minimize would do the trick here and make the user interface a bit smoother for subtitling and more consistent with Vegas.
Thanks for listening,
John
Sony, if you're listening, thanks for any consideration you might give for these ideas.
#1: Split-Subtitle feature:
when summoned, DVA would take the text after the current cursor location in the subtitle text (you would first need to be in Edit Text mode), and put it into a new separate subtitle adjacent to the original. The adjacency could be determined by splitting the time in half or perhaps as a ratio of the text before and after the cursor when it was invoked.
Here are the current actions needed to perform this task now:
1. Drag the right edge of the first subtitle to the left to make room for the new additional subtitle.
2. Copy the first subtitle and paste it into the space created in step 1
3. Go back to the first subtitle, and enter Edit Text mode. Select the text to the right of the desired “cut point” and delete it.
4. Select the new subtitle and enter Edit Text mode. Select the text from the beginning up to the “cut point” and delete it.
5. Reposition the end of the first subtitle and the beginning of the second subtitle to correspond to the appropriate frame in the audio dialog.
Repeat this sequence approximately 300 times in a one-week period and you'll understand.
#2 Invoke "Edit Text " mode via double-click:
It would much faster to be able to enter “Edit Text” mode of a subtitle in the preview window by double-clicking on the text object. Double-clicking doesn’t appear to do anything else.
#3 Join Subtitles:
Would join the selected subtitles into one subtitle event and concatenate the text
#4 Hide/Minimize Track in the Timeline:
When the video track is displayed in the timeline, the PC appears to be burdened trying to render it while it’s playing it, making subtitle positioning impossible until you've played the segment once already, which I assume is performing a RAM pre-render of some type. When the provided "Clear Video" function is invoked, the response time is fine as there's no video to process. Most of my subtitle work doesn’t need the video to position subtitles. When video is desired, I must use the “Set Video” function and find the original file with the open dialog, which is tiring when you’ve done it several times in a session. Perhaps a Vegas-style track-minimize would do the trick here and make the user interface a bit smoother for subtitling and more consistent with Vegas.
Thanks for listening,
John